A New Year's Serve

[gzhpcu]

Bottle, why not show some of your strokes? Take a video, load it up on YouTube and post the link... So we all get to know each other...

[bottle]

"Think I'll Try..."

Reader. Do you ever say to yourself, "Think I'll try," and then try something completely new? If not, why not? Too afraid of putting a green stroke into the red hot crucible of pressure play?

Such fear is justified. A possible solution however is always circling back to some version of a previous experiment. This occasionally exhausting philosophy requires that a person be creative for every minute of his life.

A number of smart players have always claimed Rosewallian slice as the model for their own backhand slice.

Such a player is Trey Waltke. Here is his article at Tennis Player. Anybody else seeking to make good with the R-model should look to this article with care and study every video and word of it.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/classiclessons/trey_waltke/the_slice_backhand/the_slice_backhand.html

One big difference, appearing over and over in the opening video, is that Waltke uses far less loop than Ken Rosewall does both in the photo-sequence that the article includes and in the videos we've discussed here in the forum a lot.

In fact the loop that Waltke does use is just a wrist loop, i.e., he brings the racket back around with the grip he wants, wrist cocked, then flattens that wrist a bit, then swings.

Does he roll the racket closed then, bow from the waist, sink down on his knees, rise from his knees, dig with his front shoulder, do anything else with the wrist? What other variations are there? There always are more variations.

Don't know about you, but I'm 74 and slowing down fast. So I need to pare my strokes as often as my nails.

Note: One of the photo sequences in the article shows contact with a cocked i.e. concave wrist. Some of Federer's BH slice contacts show that too. But in the R genre of backhand slices I feel that a flat wrist is the way to go, and flat wrist is what I'm seeing in these Waltke videos. Okay, if flat, when flat? The flattening as loop has to be interesting. So is a flat wrist before the stroke ever starts however-- that might lead to a double roll from the arm. One needs to play around with such options and understand that the playing around should never be over, in fact can keep one's tennis of perpetual interest.

[bottle]

Memoir of a Napa Valley Winery other than Montalena Chateau

Leaving us hanging just a bit there, Bottle

don

Only the Hungarian government knows the full story. Well, okay, my girlfriend, another boyfriend of hers (whom she subsequently married) and about seven computers, one of which was mine, arrived together at Ferigy 1 or 2 Airport. Once the Hungarian government had confiscated the seven computers, my girlfriend and her other boyfriend headed for her mother's apartment in Buda. Her mother and father's apartment is in Pest. Yes, I am better off in Detroit.

But why would the Hungarian customs people confiscate the computers? I guess they didn't believe my girlfriend when she told them that when her father wasn't making films, he liked to work on computers, and most of the computers were the ones he sent to her during the years when she first lived in the United States. While it's true that the same customs people thought I was a probable spy as I fled Budapest for Atlanta, and changed their opinion only when they found research in my suitcase about The Puzsta or great promised flatland in Eastern Hungary, all that occurred some weeks later.

At Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the poet in residence other than Maya Angelou, Jane, not knowing this full story, said I should be proud that the Hungarian government confiscated my computer. I have valued Jane's opinion every time I have ever heard it and I believe her.

Using any money left over from writing poems on a Guggenheim Fellowship at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, Jane went to the Napa valley in California to take over the very vineyards where her father, messed up on prescription drugs, shot at her and her siblings.

The siblings wanted nothing more to do with the wine business. Only a poet in residence would be qualified to do that work.

Do you see now, Tennis-Chiro, why I write fiction so less complicated than life?

[tennis_chiro]

He got banned for attacking without cause, or data, or justification.

Since when were any of those things required to attack from your computer?

don

[GeoffWilliams]

He got banned for attacking without cause, or data, or justification.

[tennis_chiro]

... And by the Hungarian government's seizing of my computer.

Leaving us hanging just a bit there, Bottle

don

[bottle]

Sorry to See WBC Leave

I have every reason to feel sorry about this since WBC's talk about "backhand punch" led directly to my FNBH drive and slice described in post # 2085-- intriguing alternatives to other shots I have developed in following long tract self-direction.

I have to say, I was quite shocked this morning to read Kyle's serve and volley article thread which had grown into a long kite's tail since my last checking of it not long ago at all.

My naming of my two new shots as Fox Noise was not intended as commentary on the personal politics of WBC, John, Oscar or anyone else in the tennis world. I plead complete ignorance of the politics of all tennis players everywhere except in Front Royal, Virginia.

Where, in fact, tennis was the sole hope for connection with the political establishment during the decades I lived there. Mayor John Marlow, a former tackle at the University of Virginia, once tried to kill me with a tennis ball, as I recall, but my subsequent published revelation of his Real Estate dealings on High Knob Mountain (and a conflict of interest allegation regarding a ski slope) may have led to his not seeking re-election.

P.S. Perhaps WBC should feel honored if he has indeed been banned from this forum. I still feel honored by my lifetime banishment from the Tennis Warehouse threads. And by the Hungarian government's seizing of my computer.

[bottle]

New Instruments in the Orchestra: FNBH Drive and FNBH Slice

BH stands for Back Hand, FN for Fox Noise.

Here is Fox Noise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XryKA3z_uWk

Remember: Other snakes, some extremely poisonous, only use a coil or two to strike. Fox Noise uses his whole body.

Does he have a soul? Possibly. If so, he puts all of that into every strike as well. But he doesn't care for facts, logic, detail or science.

He must be a good model for something. What? Answers: 1) all body 2) pure reaction 3) shrink wrap pre-load 4) sudden release.

Fox Noise Backhand Drive. Remove politics and metaphysics from further consideration. Use flat wrist thumb along hammer, realizing that this is not a diagonal grip! Save that (including spread of first two fingers) for double roll flat wrist stay-in-the-slot drive. Coil racket until strings are parallel to back fence. Leave a space between racket and body. Maintaining the parallelism, draw racket toward body as you shrink-wrap arm box to build tension for sudden release. This shot will be a chicken wing backhand only if one fails to straighten arm by contact. Subtle variation in elbow level will produce different trajectory and spins.

Fox Noise Backhand Slice is much the same. The big difference is in grip-- flat wrist but Australian (right-hander's big knuckle on 2.5 pointy ridge). Because of the different pitch, the strings slide under the ball. Both of these strokes begin the forcible release from elbow before whole arm takes over the load.

How do these compact shots work in play? I am exploring this subject. They certainly put strings on outside of ball. Rosewallian slice, I find, has a longer forward component but is more of an easy swing.

[bottle]

Summary

Where there has been analysis there must be synthesis. A two-part forward swing then and nothing more. First part: Keying down with racket head as hand may drop a little (backward roll). Second part: Forward straightening of arm and wrist blending into circular swing and effective followthrough. To repeat: Two parts and no more!

Oh, sorry, there are two other parts but since they are separate from forward swing they don't count: 1) backswing in which back of cocked hitting hand gets near back armpit and 2) ice cream cone like recovery that is circular and continuous and returns racket to ready position.

Addendum: Continuous followthroughs that take racket back to ready position are pretty and interesting but may not be necessary. Keeping racket high for an instant could help a right-hander's movement to the right and could keep the racket work brief for movement to the left (as one resumes ready position.)

[bottle]

Opening Rosewallian Racket Past Tray Position

But it’s so much fun to look for the mysteries. Which sometimes are due to one’s own “shortcomings” or “ineffectiveness” in seeing what is right in front of one.

I don’t want to say “failure” since the process of seeing more where before one saw less may be entirely natural and positive. In PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK, a book that won a Pulitzer Prize, Annie Dillard writes about a square yard patch of water where she returns day after day.

And never sees the same thing twice. And notices more. The lesson seems to be that limiting one’s focus can provide incredible results.

Or if not that, at least something different.

In the following clip shown at ordinary speed I somehow came to think that Ken Rosewall opened his strings to form a tray behind him. But the slow motion version (here) reinforces that the strings CLOSE to form the transitory tray.

Does this make a difference for someone exploring this great shot? You bet. You find yourself opening the strings to more than horizontal and put them very close behind you to start, right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rws3xyYbthI

Let’s say racket head gets slightly higher than human head. And that the BACK of the strings are toward Rosewall. The racket head then winds down straight toward the court and close behind the rear shoulder. Does pitch change? I don’t think so.

Let’s call this process first roll in a double roll formula.

What’s second roll then and where or when does it happen?

I’m going to say it happens in the first third of the curved level path to the ball. That leaves two thirds of the curved path for a very easy and controlled swing in which there is no further change of pitch. The shot is blocked, in other words, and I’ve heard great tennis pundits call Ken Rosewall’s famed backhand slice “a blocked shot” before.

I think that’s probably true some of the time, not true at other times.

In the slow-mo sequence being discussed here, the two thirds of curved path where there is no significant alteration of pitch flows right into the followthrough. The whole shot may just have become more simple for somebody who wants to try it.

One thing is for sure. This is some of the most effortless slice ever produced and is nothing like Steffi-slice where there is a hugely physical dig with the front shoulder.

I saw a Swiss lady cause her lesser partner to reach the final of a big open club doubles tournament one time. That team sailed through the whole draw. Then, when I discussed the tournament with her or rather asked her about her role in it, she said they lost the final because she forgot to dig with her front shoulder.

There is a guy in my club here in Detroit now who produces similar sizzle with backhand slice produced exactly the same way.

But Rosewallian slice is better because more effortless.

To use such an open faced backswing and then not to close the strings until after they have wound down and started to follow their level path takes some production time at least in the beginning.

One needs more abbreviated forms of slice to use as well. The most extreme version would be simple backhand volley. The same stroke can be used on shots that have hit the court—why not? Some great service returns are nothing more than volleys in disguise.

But when one has time, this Rosewallian example could be a very promising model. I would say that its second roll is more a straightening at the elbow (yes that rolls the racket closed) and a straightening at the wrist (yes that rolls the racket closed too). Do the two things happen at the same time? I think so, can’t see the advantage of a sequence.

There is sequence however between pitch alteration (forward roll) and then no further significant alteration, i.e., next comes pure swing and followthrough.

Anyway, the last two times I’ve played geezer tennis I’ve won with all partners, and the reason has been experiments such as this to keep one curious and fresh.

[don_budge]

Rosewall and Newcombe...Practicing for the Bloody Fun of It!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aUnSCp64S0

Sequence at .58 : Left hand comes off of racket early. Wrist straightens at bottom of racket drop. Arm extends from elbow throughout the level path to the ball.

Not that he does things this way all the time-- he doesn't.

The boys are out for a hit. It could be anywhere...anytime. Maybe warming up for a Slam tournament match...maybe just some practice.

Both dressed in all white...collars buttoned up. White balls. Wooden tennis racquets...of course. Rosewall misses a bunny of a forehand volley into the net...cardinal sin. Practice or not. He laughs and playfully retrieves the ball.

Straightening? Extending? Deep turns? Just playing tennis...only for the Bloody Fun of It. The best in the world. Aussie gold.

[stotty]

Put to rest...

I think Ken took that ball out of the air. Must have been a miss by Newcombe

don

I think you're right. Looking at Ken's eyes, he's looking upwards and the ball comes in descending.

[tennis_chiro]

Early swinging volley!?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aUnSCp64S0

Sequence at .58 : Left hand comes off of racket early. Wrist straightens at bottom of racket drop. Arm extends from elbow throughout the level path to the ball.

Not that he does things this way all the time-- he doesn't.

I think Ken took that ball out of the air. Must have been a miss by Newcombe

don

[stotty]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aUnSCp64S0

Sequence at .58 : Left hand comes off of racket early.

Not that he does things this way all the time-- he doesn't.

Yes, strange that...must be a knock-up manoeuvre. Never seen him do it the other available clips.

I think at .44 he elects for more of a forehand grip (just slightly) for that backhand he hits on the stretch...

[bottle]

Some More Rosewallian Slice (and a Good Backhand Volley)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aUnSCp64S0

Sequence at .58 : Left hand comes off of racket early. Wrist straightens at bottom of racket drop. Arm extends from elbow throughout the level path to the ball.

Not that he does things this way all the time-- he doesn't.